We posted last Sunday that Arsenal were one of only two prominent Premiership teams that hadn't yet sold out to corrupt owners (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/08/arsnes-arsenal-about-to-go-arse-over.html).
Yesterday, that situation changed in the most disturbing way imaginable. Former Arsenal vice-chairman (the word "vice" being particularly meaningful here) David Dein sold his 14.58% stake in Arsenal to Red And White Holdings (R&WH) - an investment vehicle owned by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov. Aside from the reward of pocketing £75 million ($150 million) on a stake that originally cost him just £300,000, Dein will become chairman of R&WH. Dein will head up the R&WH's attempts to increase their stake in the Gunners, but the firm insist they have no immediate plans to mount a takeover. Dein was forced off Arsenal's board in April after falling out with his fellow directors over their failure to support his plan to back a takeover by American businessman Stanley Kroenke. There are now fears that R&WH will team up with Kroenke to launch a hostile bid for Arsenal.
So far so similar to standard capitalist business practice worldwide. What sets this deal apart from the norm is Mr Alisher Usmanov.
Usmanov is 278th on the Forbes Rich List and is Russia's 18th richest man with assets totalling £2.75 billion. His prime business interests include being sole proprietor of Gallagher Holdings Ltd, owner of the Kommersant newspaper and Gazmetall steel and mining empire, he owns half of Metalloinvest and is a director of Gazprominvestholding which manages the debts of Russian monopolistic gas giant, Gazprom. The man also owns a mobile phone company, a couple of television stations and is very interested in the diamond trade.
These are the bits of his life, alongside his interest in fencing, that Mr Usmanov wishes for the world to see. Inevitably in the world of Russia's oligarchs, there is an awful lot more below the surface that Uzbek Usmanov wishes to hide from prying eyes.
Usmanov is "a typical oligarch with a very murky past" which leaves him open to pressure from the Kremlin (see: http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2006/10/editor-of-kommersant-out.html). Last year, Usmanov bought Kommersant (a leading Russian business journal that was, at the time, critical of Putin) at the Kremlin's request. The newspaper was formerly owned by Boris Berezovsky - a man who is no stranger to controversial football corruptions as we have posted previously and who has been recently implicated in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Usmanov himself stated after the purchase: "no-one asked me to buy the publisher, although I should say that my purchase of it was not against the wishes of the authorities". In today's Russia, this is a clear indication that Usmanov enjoys Putin's approval. After taking over Kommersant, the editor-in-chief was immediately sacked while the defence correspondent, Igor Safranov, mysteriously fell to his death from a Moscow window three months later. The new editor of Kommersant is Andrei Vasilyev who is a close collaborator of Berezovsky and the word on the street in Moscow is that Usmanov is plate-spinning trying to keep well-in with both Putin and Berezovsky so that he may retain his power bases no matter which route Russia moves along in the near future. Usmanov also shares close links to Roman Abramovich via their shared links to the metals sector.
In the grey world of Russian oligarchy, there are two ways to assess an individuals past and current hidden agendas - their previous/current business and political links and the views of those who have come into close contact with the operator historically.
Described widely as "the hard man of Russia" which, when one considers the other hard men of the country, is a pretty disturbing motif, the Mail On Sunday calls Usmanov a "sinister...oligarch". Usmanov has very close links to fellow Uzbek, Gafor Rakhimov - in Uzbekistan, when people utter Rakhimov's name, they prefer to say it quietly. Rakhimov is Uzbekistan's richest self-made businessman and The Observer has labelled him "a major figure in Uzbekistan's booming heroin trade". Rakhimov is also accused of conspiracy and rampant involvement in organised crime and he is close to the Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov as, indeed, through his friendship with his daughter, is Usmanov. Rakhimov cooperates with Usmanov via Gazprom which is a channel for massive slush funds and linkages to offshore financial centres (OFCs). Gazprom's Sergei Kuprianov states: "he [Usmanov] devises vehicles for handling our most difficult and sensitive transactions". In support of this view, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, states that Usmanov "was in charge of Gazprom's bribery and slush funds" and, in his book "Murder In Samarkand" describes human rights abuses including boiling people to death. Reports have claimed that Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service was monitoring Usmanov for alleged links to suspected mafia figures and a report by Lena Smirnova entitled "Uzbekistan: The Disappeared" suggests that cute and cuddly Mr Usmanov is linked to the abduction of Uzbek dissidents living abroad - a view that is supported by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
All in all, in the warped world of Richard Scudamore (the chief executive of the Premier League), Alisher Usmanov is evidently a fit and proper person for potential future ownership of one of the big four English football teams!
Dein has encouraged Arsène Wenger to sign a new contract and claims that the pair will work together again in the future. Wenger was known to be disappointed about the manner of Dein's departure but has remained silent, in public at least, about his views on the developing takeover battle at the Emirates although he is known to be disconcerted about the manner in which English clubs are being bought up by global inappropriates. We await Wenger's views.
Kroenke and R&WH now own 26.77% of the shares in Arsenal which, if they combine forces, would make them the largest single shareholder in the club. It also would put them close to the 29.9% benchmark that would require a takeover bid to be launched.
The battle for the soul of Arsenal is only just beginning.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Friday, 31 August 2007
Saturday, 23 June 2007
Propaganda And The Peripheral Press
Busy lives result in many of us having to depend on a variety of externalised sources for our societal information. The previous post suggested that such a dependency is inappropriate and that we are not able to rely on the media to act as an independent channel to the truth. One of the prime ways that media achieves this sleight of hand is via the reframing of an argument, reality or news story. A spectrum of tactics is utilised to divert our attention from where we should be looking to an altogether safer environment where the global elite and the media barons wish for us to look. The media undertakes a critical role in the filtering of information and in the subject matter that is allowed to pass editorial control. As an example, lets look at how media in the west has dealt with the continuing crisis in the Middle East both with respect to the war of terror and the Palestinian crisis.
Firstly, a little background...
The coalition of the willing is active throughout the Middle East with the publicised aim of bringing democracy to the region. The initial spin around the illegal occupation of Iraq was that the west was out to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while unearthing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and bringing the former rulers to summary justice. All of these publicised factors were a veil behind which the reality of the west's agenda lurked - this alleged process of democratisation never mentioned oil or the west's long-term strategic geopolitical agenda in the region.
The USA have not utilised the winning of hearts and minds as a military backcloth since Vietnam. The shock and awe tactics developed against the Vietcong have been the strategy of choice in the intervening years and Iraq is no different. Instead of trying to win popular support, the US has instead approached conflict on a behavioural level whereby tactics are developed that bludgeon the population into an acceptance of western democracy - think Fallujah, for example. Baudrillard famously claimed, quite correctly, that the first Iraq war never actually took place as the armed forces of the protagonists never actually fought each other face to face - as good an example of the triumph of shock and awe over hearts and minds as one is likely to find! The shock and awe mentality has spread through to the gross violations of the Geneva Convention that are represented by Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The torture techniques that were successfully utilised against the US in Vietnam have formed the bedrock of America's own tactics in extracting (flawed) information from prisoners in the current phase of the American's imperial agenda. Many of the forms of torture are highly behavioural in style and, yet, are very successful in breaking the wills of the alleged enemy combatants - 24/7 heavy metal music, waterboarding, the use of wild dogs and sexual humiliation have the same collated impact as more physical forms of abuse.
Since the 2nd World War, the US has intervened repeatedly across the planet under the flag of freedom. Initially, it was freedom from communism that allowed the butchery and starvation of many Greek people, for example, to be justified on the grounds that a few starving children were of no relevance when compared with the good fight against the commies. At this time, the CIA was globally active destabilising democratically elected regimes in furtherance of America's imperial aims. As an example, compare how CIA agent Larry Devlin was sent to the Congo to poison the government leader Patrice Lumumba with the huge fuss over the poisoning of some minor Russian recently in London. Lumumba was eventually kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1961 with the acquiescence of the Belgians and Americans. The number of column inches relating to these two news items is revealing.
Bringing the argument up to date, I intend to focus on the attitude of the powers that be to the democratic election of Hamas to rule Palestine. The coalition of the willing are big on democracy (apart from the US 2000 election, that is) and one might have thought that a non-rigged election might be applauded. Don't be soft. Global sanctions were the first tactic to be introduced, followed by the imprisoning of over half the Hamas MPs in Israeli jails. When this failed and a peace deal was reached between Hamas and Fatah that promised the hope of a better future for all Palestinians, the coalition got serious. In February, Condoleeza Rice held meetings with Fatah, Israel and pliant Arab leaders. A strategy was established to provide arms and training to Fatah with the prime purpose of overthrowing a democratically elected government through the tried and tested tactic of divide and rule. Israel loosened their vice-like grip just enough to allow the weapons into the territories with the inevitable result of yet more bloodshed. The Americans also backed the attempted coup against Venezuelan hardman Hugo Chávez in 2003 in an attempt to undermine the man's Bolívarian revolution and we could itemise numerous other recent examples where the coalition of the willing have clearly demonstrated an aversion to democracy when such democracy does not serve their strategic agenda.
So how does our free press deal with this sixty year old global agenda? Quite simply, it doesn't. All coverage of the militaristic agendas of the world's sole superpower is conspicuous by it's absence. For example, look at assassination. The deaths of Litvinenko (the unfortunate Russian) and Rafik Hariri are an omnipresent factor in all news coverage of Russia and our glorious war. But, where is the press coverage for the murders of Yasser Arafat or Savimbi? Or look at the warping of the arguments. The coalition line goes that there can be no accommodation of Hamas until the group recognises Israel's right to exist. Where is the press coverage regarding Likud's lack of recognition of the right of a Palestinian state to exist? The press also wishes for us to perceive these wars in isolation rather than combining them as an ongoing campaign to achieve prescribed military aims.
The conflicts in the Middle East only make full sense when one views the agendas that have been implemented over the last half century in an holistic manner. Look at a map of the region with oil deposits highlighted and all the incremental wars and invasions start to make sense. Oil pipelines, control of the region from Europe through Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan are the key factors. Democracy, weapons of mass destruction and alleged assassinations were simply so much spin. The US allows Israel illegally held nuclear weapons but threatens more armageddon if Iran go down the same route. The whole agenda is kneejerkingly simplistic and reactive. By targeting Islam as a whole, America has missed out on a more creative tactic of setting the Shias against the Sunnis at America's bidding and vice versa. Any moral high ground that may have acted as a persuasion to the myopic masses has been totally undermined by illegal war, torture, terror and rabidly non-democratic processes.
Arthur Schlesinger established that the global agenda moves in a series of fits and starts. Every 40 years or so, there is a new climax of psychopathic behaviour that reaches such a crescendo that the elite have to take notice of the masses and, consequently, decelerate. This law is based on the valid premise that most people just wish for an easy life but that when societal, business, governmental and military psychopathy reaches a zenith, the cry goes up that enough is enough and we are all rewarded with a window of pseudo-social living until the next generation can be bought off through their lack of political memory. The last two zeniths were represented by the Depression and the aftermath of Vietnam. Our current cycle began with the nadir of the imposition of shareholder capitalism in the early eighties and the increase in enlightened cynicism is suggestive of an imminent new zenith.
It is by no means certain that the planet will be able to survive the next wave of psychopathy unless considerable restructuring is undertaken in the near future.
And what may we expect from our free press? It is to all of our disadvantages that our present media does not inform us about geopolitical realities and corruptions but chooses to focus instead on propaganda and the periphery. Even in France, 75% of the media is in the possession of just two military defence companies. We cannot expect such organisations to take a neutral line.
In the words of Bertrand Russell: "the authorities no longer have sufficient belief in the justice of their cause to think that it can survive the ordeal of free discussion." Expect more of the same ad nauseum...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Firstly, a little background...
The coalition of the willing is active throughout the Middle East with the publicised aim of bringing democracy to the region. The initial spin around the illegal occupation of Iraq was that the west was out to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while unearthing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and bringing the former rulers to summary justice. All of these publicised factors were a veil behind which the reality of the west's agenda lurked - this alleged process of democratisation never mentioned oil or the west's long-term strategic geopolitical agenda in the region.
The USA have not utilised the winning of hearts and minds as a military backcloth since Vietnam. The shock and awe tactics developed against the Vietcong have been the strategy of choice in the intervening years and Iraq is no different. Instead of trying to win popular support, the US has instead approached conflict on a behavioural level whereby tactics are developed that bludgeon the population into an acceptance of western democracy - think Fallujah, for example. Baudrillard famously claimed, quite correctly, that the first Iraq war never actually took place as the armed forces of the protagonists never actually fought each other face to face - as good an example of the triumph of shock and awe over hearts and minds as one is likely to find! The shock and awe mentality has spread through to the gross violations of the Geneva Convention that are represented by Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The torture techniques that were successfully utilised against the US in Vietnam have formed the bedrock of America's own tactics in extracting (flawed) information from prisoners in the current phase of the American's imperial agenda. Many of the forms of torture are highly behavioural in style and, yet, are very successful in breaking the wills of the alleged enemy combatants - 24/7 heavy metal music, waterboarding, the use of wild dogs and sexual humiliation have the same collated impact as more physical forms of abuse.
Since the 2nd World War, the US has intervened repeatedly across the planet under the flag of freedom. Initially, it was freedom from communism that allowed the butchery and starvation of many Greek people, for example, to be justified on the grounds that a few starving children were of no relevance when compared with the good fight against the commies. At this time, the CIA was globally active destabilising democratically elected regimes in furtherance of America's imperial aims. As an example, compare how CIA agent Larry Devlin was sent to the Congo to poison the government leader Patrice Lumumba with the huge fuss over the poisoning of some minor Russian recently in London. Lumumba was eventually kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1961 with the acquiescence of the Belgians and Americans. The number of column inches relating to these two news items is revealing.
Bringing the argument up to date, I intend to focus on the attitude of the powers that be to the democratic election of Hamas to rule Palestine. The coalition of the willing are big on democracy (apart from the US 2000 election, that is) and one might have thought that a non-rigged election might be applauded. Don't be soft. Global sanctions were the first tactic to be introduced, followed by the imprisoning of over half the Hamas MPs in Israeli jails. When this failed and a peace deal was reached between Hamas and Fatah that promised the hope of a better future for all Palestinians, the coalition got serious. In February, Condoleeza Rice held meetings with Fatah, Israel and pliant Arab leaders. A strategy was established to provide arms and training to Fatah with the prime purpose of overthrowing a democratically elected government through the tried and tested tactic of divide and rule. Israel loosened their vice-like grip just enough to allow the weapons into the territories with the inevitable result of yet more bloodshed. The Americans also backed the attempted coup against Venezuelan hardman Hugo Chávez in 2003 in an attempt to undermine the man's Bolívarian revolution and we could itemise numerous other recent examples where the coalition of the willing have clearly demonstrated an aversion to democracy when such democracy does not serve their strategic agenda.
So how does our free press deal with this sixty year old global agenda? Quite simply, it doesn't. All coverage of the militaristic agendas of the world's sole superpower is conspicuous by it's absence. For example, look at assassination. The deaths of Litvinenko (the unfortunate Russian) and Rafik Hariri are an omnipresent factor in all news coverage of Russia and our glorious war. But, where is the press coverage for the murders of Yasser Arafat or Savimbi? Or look at the warping of the arguments. The coalition line goes that there can be no accommodation of Hamas until the group recognises Israel's right to exist. Where is the press coverage regarding Likud's lack of recognition of the right of a Palestinian state to exist? The press also wishes for us to perceive these wars in isolation rather than combining them as an ongoing campaign to achieve prescribed military aims.
The conflicts in the Middle East only make full sense when one views the agendas that have been implemented over the last half century in an holistic manner. Look at a map of the region with oil deposits highlighted and all the incremental wars and invasions start to make sense. Oil pipelines, control of the region from Europe through Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan are the key factors. Democracy, weapons of mass destruction and alleged assassinations were simply so much spin. The US allows Israel illegally held nuclear weapons but threatens more armageddon if Iran go down the same route. The whole agenda is kneejerkingly simplistic and reactive. By targeting Islam as a whole, America has missed out on a more creative tactic of setting the Shias against the Sunnis at America's bidding and vice versa. Any moral high ground that may have acted as a persuasion to the myopic masses has been totally undermined by illegal war, torture, terror and rabidly non-democratic processes.
Arthur Schlesinger established that the global agenda moves in a series of fits and starts. Every 40 years or so, there is a new climax of psychopathic behaviour that reaches such a crescendo that the elite have to take notice of the masses and, consequently, decelerate. This law is based on the valid premise that most people just wish for an easy life but that when societal, business, governmental and military psychopathy reaches a zenith, the cry goes up that enough is enough and we are all rewarded with a window of pseudo-social living until the next generation can be bought off through their lack of political memory. The last two zeniths were represented by the Depression and the aftermath of Vietnam. Our current cycle began with the nadir of the imposition of shareholder capitalism in the early eighties and the increase in enlightened cynicism is suggestive of an imminent new zenith.
It is by no means certain that the planet will be able to survive the next wave of psychopathy unless considerable restructuring is undertaken in the near future.
And what may we expect from our free press? It is to all of our disadvantages that our present media does not inform us about geopolitical realities and corruptions but chooses to focus instead on propaganda and the periphery. Even in France, 75% of the media is in the possession of just two military defence companies. We cannot expect such organisations to take a neutral line.
In the words of Bertrand Russell: "the authorities no longer have sufficient belief in the justice of their cause to think that it can survive the ordeal of free discussion." Expect more of the same ad nauseum...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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